Pastor Narcissus
FLY-FISHING AND PASTORAL MINISTRY are like a Woody Allen movie: both are about sex and death, sex and death, sex and death. Trout rise to eat the insects that ride the stream, suspended on the surface tension of the water. The insects are on their way to mating, fertilization, and then death. The fly-fisher floats a fur-and-feather imitation of the insects on the surface of the water, hoping to trick the trout into a strike. The trout must eat the bug to live. The bug must reproduce to prolong the existence of the species. The fisher interrupts the fish's feeding cycle by catching it. The fateful meeting of the fisher and the trout are keyed to the reproduction-and-death cycle of the insect. Pastoral ministry is, likewise, to a large degree keyed to the reproduction and the death cycles of humans. This is the natural relation of the cycle of eros and thanatos, the Greek words for sexual love and death. We conduct ceremonies for the purpose of solemnizing and blessing the birth of humans, the onset of puberty in humans, the mating rituals of humans, and the death of humans. Much of the church's ministry is organized around the orderly and successful progress of reproduction cycles. We initiate programs to support and enhance courtship, marriage, and child raising. We devise youth groups, one major purpose of which is to keep humans from mating too soon. The modern church attempts to provide program niches for persons not directly involved in the reproduction cycle—singles and seniors—but the church is never as good at that as it is at providing program support for those intimately involved in human reproduction. Why? One reason may be that the church and its rituals evolved over a couple thousand years during which successful ...
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